Learning to Love Again
by The Bud
Summary: Well, it's another one taking place after Jean found out about Emma and Scott and alot of the later mainstream cannon never gets a chance to happen. I kill off somebody and maim others. Enjoy.
1. Chapter 1

The gig is up! I don't own this.

Learning to Love Again.

"Come with me." He pleaded, not just with his mouth, but also with his startling blue eyes, particularly, with his soul. He held her cheek in his large, calloused hand as she nuzzled it longingly. He knew her answer because it was held in her deep green eyes, and he knew why.

Scott. Scott had foolishly gotten between Jean and Emma during a fight. Emma thought it perfectly all right to be naked with Jean's husband in Jean's bed. Jean, however, felt otherwise and Scott now lay in that bed alone, and with some pretty nasty injuries thanks to Emma's psy-bolts and the Phoenix force. Jean blamed herself, but in reality, and woman with a cosmic amount of energy would have done the same thing.

Tears run down her face from those crystalline green eyes, wetting Logan's hand as she kisses it. "I can't, Logan. Not yet, I have to fix things with Scott first. I can't leave things this way." She wraps her arms around him so tightly; their flesh might as well have been one. "I love you." She whispers as she tries not to let the chest wracking sobs come forth and consume her. And, Logan knows she means it, with every bit of her that can, but she still tells him to get on his motorcycle. She tells him to let her know were he ends up and that she'll be there when she can.

He rides away, watching her cry in his mirror until she's obscured by dust and space. He reaches into his pocket, mainly to check, once again, that his cigars are still there, but there's something other than his cigars in there, something that makes him stop. It's a picture; Jean gave him a picture of herself, looking at the camera lovingly and a kiss in pink lipstick in the corner. Her declaration of affection scrawled across the back. He almost turns back to try and collect her, but he doesn't. Diplomatically, Jean had chose Scott.

About Two Long Years Later.

He has settled into Alberta, he has good work and even hears from her once in a while. How she finds him, he can only guess, but she does. She divorced Scott ten months ago and has spent one incredible weekend here with him, but she never stayed, her work with the X-Men never permitted it. She has given him several pictures, but he cherishes the first, keeping it in his wallet. Orroro has even come to see him, when her royal duties permit. He looks forward to Jean's musk scented letters. The logging work doesn't permit him any permanent address, but they find him.

The letter that finds him today has no such pleasantries. Jean has gone missing, you see, Scott did not take the divorce as well as everyone though, even though he remarried soon after to Emma. Emma was found brutally mutilated in her and Scott's home. Her eyes had been removed, as well as her implants, save to mention someone tried home trepanation on her. Beast and Cecilia had guessed it was somebody trying to rob her of her telepathic abilities. At first, no one suspected Scott; he was supposed to be in London at the time. Then, little things started to lead to him. Then bigger things, and then, in a letter to me, Jean described something of Scott's dreams filtering through the rapport they once shared. Ones where Scott actually laughed as he drilled through Emma's skull, and Scott found out Jean knew.

Jean was coming to live with me because she was so scared of him. Frightened of what Apocalypse had done to Scott's mind, she had arranged secretly to come, and she should have been here yesterday. I told her I'd come to get her; I let that stubborn woman talk me out of it. If I had just done something, anything but wait for her, she'd be here with me.

Scott went missing about the same time Jean did and I'm terrified of anything that could mean. There is a manhunt out for him, Hank feared over Scott's mental state, and a chemical used to inhibit the powers of an unstable mutant was taken from Beast's lab. Scott could have done anything to her.

I remember that a madman that erased our memories of her, The Gamemaster, took Jean awhile back and I almost think I know where Scott has her. Her guard was down while she was shopping for groceries, and old lady, mind wiped by the man, injected Jean with a chemical that knocked her out completely. None of us knew a thing, none of us remembered too. Cerebro had picked up on her as a new, powerful signature after Joseph had been so sure she was a missing person we had forgotten. He lobbied for us to look, even though Scott and I personally wanted to put him in a strait jacket.

Turned out that he was right, his own mutant ability prevented his mind from being tampered with, and there she was. I know where that house was, just a stone throw from the mansion on some ill tended grounds just off the property, but would Scott be stupid enough, or brilliant enough to use it? It's not a place people knew to look, not even the county registry listed it as being there. "It's perfect." Logan thinks as he tries to access the last memories she shared with him, it was the middle of the night, would have been about eleven for her, but he woke up with a start. He couldn't completely remember what woke him; he just knew it was her. He thought it was just a bad dream, it's happened before and nothing was ever wrong so he thought nothing of it and uneasily went back to sleep.

He never heard from her completely afterwards. He thought she just had cold feet and she was known to disappear every now and then, but always came through with flying colors with her promises. She had promised to be here. When she didn't show up by midnight, he started packing his motorcycle and went to work, giving her some more time. He had some vacation coming up, he'd use it to find her.

Then I got the letter. It informed me to stay put, that the Blackbird was going to come and get me sometime today. The letter was penned a week ago, Storm must have known about how long it would take to reach me, she must have known to put the tracking device on it to find me. She must have known that Jeannie was coming to me. She must have known that I wouldn't take this lightly.

I can't understand as to why she didn't come for me before now, but she explained that Cerebro had been busted and when I don't want to be found, no telepath on earth could easily do it. I'd sworn I'd never set foot on Xavier's property again, not while Scott and Emma ran it, but maybe I shouldn't have been so stubborn. Maybe I should have stayed for her, or turned back that day, even if I had to suffer. But, and I hate to say it, it was too painful. I couldn't watch her throw what was left of her life away for Scott, even if it was doomed.

Scott had been corrupted by his time merged with Apocalypse. Remy had seen it and Remy had died because of it too. I don't remember doing it, and it might not have been just me, but I blanked out and attacked, Rogue tried to stop me, but absorbed my abilities, knocking me out. Beast found her later, Rogue had gutted Remy, presumably, but someone had to organize it, and it was odd that only Remy was attacked. He was targeted for death and in a way to get me out of the picture, but I was cleared. The marks were too small for me to have done.

"Logan?" Storm calls my name, perhaps the fourth time, drawing me out of my own mind. "We are here." She wants me to take her to the old house that I remembered, and I do, but there is not much left. I was wrong. I thought I was wrong, but I wasn't. Just about the house, the other one was a football field's length away, obscured by the dense growth and ivy vines. It's crumbling brick providing only a hint of what it had been nearly a century ago, the last time it was used as servants quarters for the main house. The door was intact, made of a hard wood turned gray in it's years of abandonment, and the floors creaked and smelled of dust, but there were footprints, dozens of them, all the same size, and one faded line of drag marks, slowly being covered with fuzz.

The dirt and mold had filled my nose, but I knew she was here, Scott wasn't, fresh tracks told the tale of his leaving to whatever a man on the run does. With a pile of ashes in the fireplace, and not enough time to cure wood for use, he must be out foraging for firewood to keep the rats away. We turned the corner, well aware that our own tracks would tattle our having been here when he returns. Getting her was now or never.

Then, there she was, chained to the wall and drooping. Her arms both had to be almost dislocated for her to be hanging like that. I knew first hand how agile she is, but that looked like that hurt, badly. Her clothes were torn, bloody and tattered. But she breathed and looked at me with those green eyes before looking past me and trying to scream, perhaps to warn Storm and me. She couldn't help us as Scott stood there, covered in a weeks worth of salty sweat and coppery blood, iron scented dirt and several other body fluids that get sticky over time. He just doesn't look like Scott.

"You can't have her." He tells us as he swings at us, Storm shocking him with a small bolt to disable him, and it works as he hits the dirty floor with a thump. He groans as I know that he must have snapped a rib. I don't know what they've been eating while they've been here, but there's a bucket of rain water with a cup in it, at least they've had water. I can't get the cuffs off her, her wounds have scabbed around it, but I can pop the bolts out of the worn brick wall. Scott starts to come too, and before Storm and I can really stop him, he's taken his knife from his waste band and lodges it deep in Jean's chest and pulls. Storm gets Scott under control again, the full array of the distorted features he now wears fully visible as his optic blasts punch through the wall and the dim sunlight filters in through the tree canopy above.

She lays across my lap, my face wears the expression of shock that never left since we found her, her blood runs over my lap and the first spray drips from my face as some yellowish fluid trickles from her mouth as I look down at her, my breath catching in my chest. I know she's suffocating on her own blood, but I can't do anything. We should have brought Hank with us, we should have, but a complication with Emma arose and that was the most important thing to work on right then rather than a hunch of mine, but Jean was what was most important to me. I couldn't spare the time to save her, but maybe, if I had waited, she wouldn't be looking up at me trying to form words but with very little sound making it's way out.

Storm has pressed her communicator and somebody, anybody should be here to get Scott's unconscious body out of here, but it wouldn't be soon enough to save this woman on my lap as she stops trying to breathe and goes limp on my. I hug her body and scream to the heavens as she dies. I almost don't notice the flicker of light that flits away from her, almost, but there it was and if I'd blinked, I'd never see it, and there it went. Storm saw it too, but as to what it meant, I don't know.

Three Days Later.

We put her in the ground today. I'm getting tired of putting her there; it's a waste of time. She never stays. I wanted to put her under glass, as though she was just sleeping, but my kiss wouldn't have brought her back. Hank found out what had sent Scott over the edge, first, Scott has brain cancer, he can't be healed and that led for the most part, to his personality changes. Second, Jean was pregnant, about four months along, about how long since she spent that long weekend with me and Scott could not stand the thought of Jean pregnant with another mans child. I'm not only burying the love of my life, but my unborn child too. The pain is just so much to bear. I don't want Scott to have the year he's got left, I want to kill him now, as does Emma, I imagine. The pink scars around her eyes forever mar her once pretty face. With the way prosthetics are now, she could have normal looking features, but she'll never see, and she'll never be as physically beautiful as she was. The hair hasn't grown back over the head scar from where the drill tore through her skull ither.

Out of nowhere, after the other mourners have parted through the wet tombstones and sodden grass and the damp graveyard soil has fragranced the air, a man taps me on the shoulder and tells me "I can give you her and the child back. Just give me the bodies."


	2. Chapter 2

Its O.K., You know I dont own this.

Where My Feet Have Danced.

I dont know why we bother putting her in the ground. She never stays there. I wanted to put her under glass, sort of like sleeping beauty because I knew shed always rise again. I also knew my kiss would never wake her.

AI can give you her back. I can give you both of them back. I heard those words and even though I knew I should walk away, I couldn'tt. My legs would not go. I had, however, managed to throw his gray hand off my shoulder.

Apocalypse has not always been on the good side of the X-Men, his complications with us stemming from his association with Scott Summers and Jean Grey. Hes mutilated some of my teammates into his versions of the four horsemen; his own son had personally warped me into Death. Warren had held that title before me, and Gambit afterwards. Gambits dead now and I cant think of any reason that this man would want to help me.

AI aint buyin I growl as the rain that started as a dreary haze starts to pick up strength but Im not leaving yet. He could take her at any time, I know that I cant stop that, but I want answers. AWhat do you want with her? Hasn't her family killed you at least a dozen times? Didn't Cable just obliterate you?

He just smiles a horrible excuse for a smile as he sheds his guise of a normal mourner to the blue lipped version I know best. AYou know she will come back on her own, that you know, but will she come back as the Jean Grey that you love so very much, or will she come back as Phoenix? Perhaps something worse… I can assure Jean Grey. The child, I do as a kindness for my sons indiscretions. Besides that small matter, Jean Grey is not my primary concern. Ill do this matter for the smallest of prices. He pauses to let the implications sink in for me. AYou should know that Cable will never kill all of me.

My mind starts going through the list of whatever it could be. Perhaps a vessel for him to use as his new body made of Scott and Jeans mixed bloodlines? One of the other team members? El Saba Nur doesn'tt do anything that is not a direct benefit to himself.

Quit thinking, mutant as your thoughts are of no matter to me. He wearily tells me as now the wind starts to swirl around us, making a sad display of the damp leaves underfoot. AGive me Cyclops, he has something of mine that I desire back and kill Nathaniel Essex, hes been a thorn in my side for too long. He looks at me with a knowing eye, at least from what I can see through the needling rain. AI dont believe that should prove problematic for you, after all, Scott did kill the love of your life. The wind picks up to a howl as it must be Storms doing. The weather must be reflecting what shes feeling right now.

AI dont trust you! I scream still unwilling to leave.

Do as you wish. Apocalypse shrugs his massive shoulders as he starts to walk away in the downpour Ayou may tell Scott should you see fit, that Ill be coming for him. Hes playing games with me and it works.

Wait! I call after him and disbelief sets into my mind over what I hear myself so. AIll do it. Just give me her back. Them back. Please.

He smiles that smile at me again as he affirms our deal with his dead handshake. AWhen are you going to do this?

Her? I already have. She never was in that casket, as that was illusion. The baby? Jean Grey will be used as an incubator; Shell never need know she ever died. Scott, well I should imagine youd enjoy seeing him suffer a bit, no? He fades quickly into the squalling rain and as the hail starts, I almost know better than to look back. I was almost afraid of what Id see as I headed into the house. It seemed strange that the ground that her loved ones would come and cry at would never hold her and that secret would only be shared between two of us in that house. The two men that loved her best.

I enter the house in the back, everyone that was in the kitchen was sipping afternoon coffee sharing stories about the dead, and its O.K. Everyone does it. I find out through my unintentional eavesdropping that they all knew, or had at least suspected about the baby. Kitty says something in the way of sympathy for me and disbelief over how far that Scott was allowed to slip. All the chatter stopped when Rogue saw me standing there.

Logan? She reaches out to me with her gloved hand, probably slightly damp from the tears shes spilt not just over Jean, but for the memories of what had happened to Gambit that must be surfacing. She didn'tt remember much right after it happened, but over the two years some of the brutal savagery that a dose of my own mind and memories had led her to do. It wasnt her fault, no one could control the parts of me that coursed through and warped her mind. I certainly wasnt in control of myself enough to stop her, Im almost sure Id ripped someone up, bur Ill never really know.

I know, Darlin I tell her, not just because anything she has to tell me would hurt to badly, which it would, but I had to get to the one person I could not stand to see right now. I have to get to Scott. AYou dont have to say it.

I try to get out of there, but Jubilee insists on hugging me and telling me how sorry she is, asking if theres anything she can do and her sorrow over the loss of the baby. I do manage to pry her off, I can see that shes hurting, were the only family she has, and I arrange to have coffee with her later, but Ive got to get to Scott. He knows more than what hes telling me and after swimming though a sea of students dressed in black, most only whispering about who I was as only a few older students had ever met me, leaving me only a terrible legend a ghost story in their young minds.

When I get to his room, he looks like hes sleeping. I can tell that the power inhibiter is working in this room; that, in itself would give any telepath a headache. Hes attached to his bed; a good thing as we would probably be trying to kill each other right now. The slight grin that forms at the edges of his deformed mouth lets me in on that he knows Im here. AYou shouldn'tt have let him have her, Logan. Youll never get her back, youll get some version of her, but not the one youre hoping, stupid little man Scott goads me.

What do you know? Im not asking, Im demanding. I snap at him. He still never opens his eyes as he starts to answer me. His voice, while similar to what it should be, just isnt Scotts.

I was being merciful when I killed her, now youll have to do it again. He tries to lead me way from what I want.

You killed her so that I couldn'tt have her, and you weren'tt merciful to Emma. I argue, my blood starting to boil over this mans apathy over his deeds, over how unconcerned he is over taking the love of my life from me.

Is that how you see it? He laughs at me. AEmma, no, I wasnt merciful to and the rest of you are being overly so. Shes behind some of this and I wanted to see her suffer for taking Jean away from me and giving her to you. Jean had to die not just so you couldn'tt have her, but so he wouldn't. I failed, you failed.

First off, Scott, you sent her into my arms. I tell him in a calm, icy tone that would put Emma to shame. "Second off, I'll do whatever it takes to get her and that child back."

"And you don't think that Apocalypse has his own plans for her and the child?" Scott scoffs. "Emma knew too much. Believe it or not, she was trying to protect you, and her. She got in my way."

"So You're going to just kill anybody who doesn't go by your rules?" I chide him, still trying to keep from shredding his face, from truly blinding him as he'd done Emma. "I suppose Gambit had just gotten in your way too." That got him. I almost think I'd broken him when he finally did open his eyes and he started to scream.

"Get out! Get out of here!" He shouted in a voice that was finally just Scott. His eyes had opened to a murky mix of crimson and ebony, an eerie reminder of Gambit's own eyes. "It wasn't all… I didn't… GO!"

By the end of Scott's choppy sentences, Beast had managed to arrive and had plunged a needle of some vaguely greenish yellow liquid into Scott's arm, right before we both were blinded by a horrible white light. Then, he was gone, only the deafening roar of his screeching protests rang in our ears.

In his place, there was Jean, whole, alive and very obviously, pregnant. I had started to question whether she had really been dead. Maybe, the Phoenix force had just put her to sleep again. I sat by that bed for the better part of a week waiting for her to wake up.

"Hello, again." I whispered as her eyelids had started to flutter again.

"Logan?" She asked sleepily, almost slurring my name. "What…"

"Shhh baby. It was all a dream." I tell her as I kiss that little pale hand. "You're alright now. You and the baby are alright." I should have known she was too smart for that.

"If it was a dream, why am I in this bed and how did you know about the baby? No one knew." She sits up suddenly. "No! No, No, No, No! Logan! You didn't! This is wrong! I should be dead! You never should have trusted…!" She looks at me franticly. "You have to kill me! We don't know what he's done!"

"Jeannie," I looked down, my teeth gritted and tears stared to roll down my weathered face. "I'm not strong enough. I can't keep killing you, I can't kill my own child."

"Then I'll have to find some way, Logan." She says as she tries to stand up. "I don't know just what danger I've put you all in."

She doesn't quite get her feet on the ground before she clutches the sides of her head and her red hair peeks out in tendrils around her fingers. She starts to scream, drawing Hank's attention from a floor down. He's there before I know it, hooking her up to all sorts of machines and gadgets, wheeling her to a special room that Scott had insisted be built. It was a failsafe for when and if Jean's powers posed a threat to the known world, once we put her in, it was going to be hard, if not impossible to get her out. As her eyes flit back from orange fire to green, I know that Apocalypse's price wasn't just Scott's memories and it wasn't the death of Essex, which I've yet to do, he must have done something terrible to her.

"I love you, Red." I whisper as I kiss her cheek and we push her inside. We don't get the door shut, not because we hesitate, but because Scott, standing there with half his head shaved, blew it off. The ozone and plasma still fragranced the air as we note that he's brought along a hostage.

"Scott, why is Emma here?" Beast asks over concern for the limp woman being dragged.

"I need Emma and Jean for now." Scott tells us plainly. "We need them to save Sinister, or all of us will die."

O.K. The next chapter might be awhile as I've trashed my computer and have to find time after work to write. It's a long story, but a broken toe later, It'll be alright.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Once again, as many times over the broken years, I don't own this and have no permission to use this material.

Letting Well Enough Alone.

"What do ya mean "You need her" The Wolverine growls, extending his claws to emphasize his point with a loud "snit" to his once teammate and friend. He's not in the mood for these games, he's been through enough for this woman, having made a deal with the proverbial devil to get her back from the "dead". Her, and the child she carries, his own flesh and blood, his own new beginning. Even though he has to wonder himself now at what cost, not like El Saba Nur has ever been trustworthy. "Answer me Boy Scout 'cause you ain't getting' her without going through me!" Logan squares off for a fight. his breath hot and his muscles twitching as his skin lights with his fire hot intent. "And I don't care squat for Mr. Sinister or Apocalypse. They got what they wanted and as far as I'm concerned, they can keep you."

Scott doesn't say anything, not at first, he just throws Emma's protesting, moaning body to the floor, the veins on the shaved side of his head pulsing and fires an optic blast square at Logan's chest, nearly sending the short man off his wide feet. A warning shot to be sure, the next blast absolutely was meant to hurt a lot worse. "Is that all you got, punk?" Logan spits out as blood slightly trickles and then stops from the corner of his mouth and stains his shirt a foamy pink. Had Logan not the mutate abilities he had, that blast would have sent a rib into his lung, even though the damage was bad enough as is. "Little man, I've had enough of you interfering." Scott finally, calmly replies as he closes the gap between the two men, firing more shots along the way, lighting the room with its eerie pale, red glow. "Learn to listen sometimes and you'll fare much better" the man grits through his teeth. Cyclops intense concentration on Logan had taken his focus away from Beast, whom had leapt upon the opportunity to scoop up both women to take to safety, despite the burning injury to himself caused by Jean's flaming and flailing body, but Scott wasn't leader of an entire mutant organization, much less a school for nothing. Beast should have known this, being the genius he is, but he had to try and it doesn't take Scott long to dispatch Beast too as he and his cargo hits the floor with a loud, resounding thud. Beast groans as he finds the pain of moving to be intolerable, and Emma sits cradling an obviously fractured arm. Jean however is on her feet, her appearance closer to normal and she looks mad. Her chest is heaving heavily with every hard breath and sweat glistening and her red hair plastered on her flushed face. Had Scott been in his right mind, this would have been where somebody tried to calm her red-head down. Logan is smart enough not to try and engage her. "Scott!" she sharply barks as the orange glow of the Phoenix force comes to life, forming its signature claw as it folds around her former lover, lifting him to the false ceiling of the darkened room "What did you do to me?" She snarls as the claw begins to squeeze, turning Scotts already sticky damp face crimson and then purple. "Please, Jean! Don't!" Emma cries out to try and save her husband. "You don't understand what you're doing! You aren't just killing him! Gambit is stuck in there too!"


End file.
